Currently, the most commonly-used methods for displaying a character selection area, which comprises a plurality of characters and/or terms (hereinafter referred to as “character choices”) for a user to choose from, display the character selection area either as a vertical array or a horizontal array of character choices. For instance, the commonly-used smart ABC input method for inputting characters/terms displays the character choices in a vertical rectangular area. On the other hand, the commonly-used pinyin (a Romanization system to transcribe Chinese characters/terms based on the pronunciation in Mandarin Chinese) input method for inputting characters/terms displays the character choices in a one-level horizontal rectangular area.
FIG. 1 illustrates a vertical character selection area with the smart ABC input method. After a user enters a pinyin, the characters already chosen by the user are displayed in the box in the upper left-hand corner. During the user input process, the character selection is displayed in a rectangular area, or box, on the right-hand side of the display. In this example, after the pinyin “pin’ is entered by the user, the character selection box on the right-hand side displays a list of character choices: “1: pin-1, 2: pin-2, 3: pin-3, 4: pin-4, 5: pin-4, 6: pin-6, 7: pin-7, 8: pin-8, 9: pin-9” (note: each of these Chinese characters is pronounced as “pin” in Mandarin Chinese but the meaning of which is different from that of one another). The next set of character choices can be obtained by the user by clicking on the next page icon. The chosen character is displayed in the box in the upper left-hand corner. Upon choosing one or more desired characters/terms, the user may input the chosen character(s)/term(s) for further processing.
FIG. 2 illustrates a horizontal selection area for inputting characters/terms by the pinyin input method. The pinyin entered by a user is displayed in the box on the upper portion, and the character choices are displayed in the lower box. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 2, after the user enters the pinyin “qian jin” as a term including two Chinese characters, the lower horizontal box displays the following character choices: “1: qian jin-1, 2: qian jin-2, 3: qian jin-3, 4: qian jin-4, 5: qian jin-5” (note: each of these Chinese terms is pronounced as “qian jin” in Mandarin Chinese but the meaning of which is different from that of one another). Of course, the next set of character choices can be obtained by the user by clicking on the next page icon. The user can select the desired character or term with the respective number key representing the desired character or term.
Between the abovementioned vertical and horizontal display of character selection boxes, the human eye tends to move faster horizontally than vertically. Accordingly, the search and selection speed tends to be much faster when the character selection is displayed horizontally. However, whether the display of character selection boxes is horizontal or vertical, when the list of character choices is long it will still take the eye some time to sweep across the displayed characters/terms. Thus, a longer search and selection time tends to result, which may not be conducive for users to speedily select the desired character/term. Ultimately, selection of the desired character/term by a user may not be optimized, and undesirable visual fatigue on the user's part may result as well.